


Souvenir of War

by BeastOfTheSea



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-02-17
Packaged: 2017-11-29 14:18:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/687944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeastOfTheSea/pseuds/BeastOfTheSea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He reminds Lord Voldemort of someone he once was. (Goblet of Fire AU, takes place in the graveyard)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Souvenir of War

**Author's Note:**

> (Sorry for yet another genfic for HarryMort Prompt Night. I'm just not that good at writing shipfics. *embarrassed*)
> 
>  **Generic HP Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J. K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Potter stares back at him from the tombstone, his eyes lively and filled with hate; his mouth is bloody from where he bit through his lip under the Cruciatus, and his breaths come short and fast – not out of fear or panic, no, but only a natural reaction to the sudden, intense burst of pain.

Lord Voldemort wonders, as he looks at the boy. As clearly inferior as Potter is – as lacking in magic, as deficient in wits, as weak and sentimental as the boy is, compared to his noble self – he cannot help seeing –

He cannot help thinking back to what he has seen of the boy when the boy sleeps – to the simultaneous worship and hatred and fear Potter’s supposed “peers” hold for the boy, to the boy’s maltreatment by the Muggles to whom Dumbledore insists on sending him every summer, to the intelligence and contempt for those around him that Potter hides deep within his soul, and hides deeper every year. And he cannot help but be reminded of another boy, a boy whose name he no longer permits to be spoken –

Lord Voldemort is not careless, no, and  he does not indulge in such foolish customs as “mercy”. But he has always enjoyed tempting danger, if solely to prove that any mortal threat is as nothing before Lord Voldemort, and the boy’s continued resistance… entertains him.

Potter will entertain him more at his leisure.

His mouth curling into a mirthless smile, he grips Potter’s head with both hands; the boy’s gritted teeth give way to blind screams after a few minutes, followed by unconsciousness within several more, and Lord Voldemort turns to his followers – and observes which of them seem faintly ill. Fatherhood has softened a few of them, it seems. A pity; they will have to be broken back to their old viciousness, or find themselves no longer fathers.

“Did you think that I would kill him here?” he asks them rhetorically; of course they did. “No - I rather think it would be the act of a coward to dispose of the boy at the first available opportunity, when I have every advantage and he has none. And, perhaps, my haste to dispose of him might have appeared to you a sign of fear…” Hmm. A few flinches? What little faith they had, his wayward followers. “…when, in truth, nothing could be more false.”

He tilts his head as he regards those who surround him, his half-lidded eyes seeking out any signs of doubt amongst them. “Instead, Lord Voldemort has chosen to spare him – in the manner of Caesar, who spared his enemies to show his great mercy… or, more truthfully, to show he had nothing to fear from any of them.” He allows himself a cold chuckle. “But Lord Voldemort shall not allow himself to be stabbed to death in the Senate – if there remained any doubt.

“No, rather, Lord Voldemort will keep him as a war prize… a memento of times gone past.” A reminder of the vast chasm between the boy he had been and the Lord he was now. But his followers did not need to know the full truth… just as Severus had not needed to hear the full prophecy. “Let Dumbledore’s minions know this – that their precious savior, their _Boy-Who-Lived_ , is as nothing but a curiosity to Lord Voldemort, and lives only at his pleasure.

“And let them know that their master will not live at mine.”


End file.
